Banjo had somehow managed to have snuck in unseen through the back entrance of the Intake House. He raced into his room and threw the rest of his P.E. uniform on over his speedos. He'd thank God for small miracles except what he could hear made it clear it was no miracle at all. Commotion from the front of the house. Little wonder he could sneak back in through the back unnoticed. They were all waiting for their rides to the Plateau out the front and it sounded like they were boarding now!
He scrambled out of the intake house, before catching himself, doing a tidy pirouette to re-balance himself, and slowing his pace to a walk.
"--noficially he's still as much a member of Blackjack as any of y'all."Oh, he threw a y'all in there. How charmingly folksy. Hasn't hit his quota yet. But Banjo uncharactheristically kept this thought to himself, holding 'the Butler's' message about this situation being more permanent still in his mind and not doubling down on putting a target on his back for being late.
He quietly snuck in behind Blonde Sparky McGee and some blonde bird whose name escapes him because he didn't previously give a shit when people were doing initial introductions. Banjo was pretty sure the other guy's name wasn't Blonde Sparky McGee either, he was pretty sure that would have actually stuck if it was the case.
"Who's that guy?" He whispered to him.
No response. Is he hard of hearing too? Maybe the side effect of his powers. Chronic tinnitus. Made a sort of sense. He'd whisper louder.
"Who's that guy?""Shut. Up."Well, that was less than polite... He was only asking a straightforward question.
"Who's that guy?"Sparky McGee's teeth gritted so hard his face might spark up if his hands wouldn't first. To his right, Banjo could see one of his hands glowing. Geez, is this bloke really this tightly wound?
"Should have been here on time." he spat in a hushed tone through gritted teeth.
Banjo looked at him screwfaced. "The Hell'd I do to this guy?" He racked his brain. And whilst he did he wasn't ready for the answer to his question to come from the blonde bird next to him.
"Tad."Banjo snorted. Loudly. And couldn't keep the laughter off his face after either. Tears welled in the corners of his eyes.
Big Country with his "Y'all"s glared at Banjo menacingly.
"Look what the Chancellor dragged in.""And who's this Highway Patrol reject, while we're at it?" Which to Banjo's surprise he managed to keep to internal monologue.
"Team, this mountain of a man is Aaron Matthews, the faculty representative for your fellow new students of Team 18.”And then a redhead alighted from one of the two vehicles. Presumably from one of the vehicles, because he couldn't see Aphrodite's clamshell anywhere. "Good Lord, do they not let in anything under an 'eight' here." He thought to himself.
Then he looked down the line at Trace. "Well... maybe they grade 'em a 'one' for each arm." Tuck that little comeback away for later... Let's face it, there will be a later.
“And this spitfire here, is Team 18’s student advisor, Ryan Clarke,” Introduced Good ol' Jim-Bob, minus the Bob. ...Regardless how well the Bob fits.
“These ones have the look of winners,” The Redheaded Ryan pronounced, declaring her opinion that Abercrombie and Fitch models are "winners".
“Yours, eh, I wouldn’t go all in just yet, Jim.”Wait, Abercrombie and Fitch..? Banjo looked down their own line at the two "football friends" from earlier, Sparky McGee... he wasn't exactly chopped liver himself. Calliope looked like she belonged either on a catwalk somewhere or on the business end of a camera - TV or film, take your pick...
He chuckled to himself in realisation that this transparent display was just meant to spark competition...
...until he looked down the line and saw that those same "football friends" had taken that hook, the sinker, the float, the rod and half the damn boat. Goddamn. Were they
REALLY this easy to manipulate?
Then she ruffled. Heh. Tad. --'s hair.
“So cute.” she uttered in a demeaning way.
"No, little Banjo. She's bad for you. Stop it. You should not want that."
"Exactly, you should not. But you do. Because you are broken. And therefore clearly in need of 'Guidance'."
"No little Banjo. Bad little Banjo. You go away and think about this-- Wait, no... Don't you think about this later. I'm onto you, little Banjo..."
Ok... So yes. They really were that easy to manipulate.
“All students assigned to Team 18, you’re in the vehicle marked with an Eclipse, anyone not assigned to Team 18 can find their ride 'cause you’re not with me.” The 'super trooper' called them to fall in, and a bunch of equally hapless youths to Banjo's Blackjack Bunch bundled into their own buses and buggered off. Apparently taking their furry friend to go get flead, de-wormed and his claws clipped.
A bunch more artificial jibes, transparently designed to drum up competition, and it was their turn to get in their six wheelers and head off to the next pre-planned act of lunacy.
Banjo jumped in the back of Jim-Bob's truck before the seats were even taken - Just as he could only be a Jim-Bob (-Bob pending), the fact he
WAS a Jim-Bob made it a truck. A Jim-Bob could only drive a truck - and everyone else piled in where they could. Soon enough they were off!
Banjo was bouncing around in the back, laughing his arse off at the stereotypical nature of their tour guide, his drawl, his choice of phrase and general mannerisms. Oblivious to the occasional side-eye and quizzical expression from the others his obnoxious cackling was bringing. Every aspect of this place was seemingly ridiculous to him, and his laughter even occasionally spilled into the cabin and into the background of Jim's commentary over the radio.
Until they hit the artificial cliff faces of the Southern Plateau known as the Howling Cliffs, where ironically Banjo's howls of laughter fell silent. Not because it wasn't still ridiculous to him, but rather because it was too far all over again. Back home if a Hyperhuman deigned to grace the public with such an aweinspiring display of power they'd be stuffed in a white room and stripped for parts. Probably. Banjo was never game to find out. Every time he'd used his own he'd made sure to do it in absolute privacy. And they'd always been on the run. Presumably because they'd get found out somehow and have to scarper. Purely speculation, but it made as much sense as anything.
Now he saw an entire hyperhuman-made landscape that factored in nature's acoustics in its design. It beggared belief.
Jim-Bob's truck and
*Snort* Tad's car, pulled up and everyone jumped out.
Jim-Bob called to order the first business at hand. Setting up camp. Two people to a tent. No exceptions. Which didn't seem promising. Banjo thought he might be hard up to find someone who didn't seem vaguely bothered by his presence in one way or another. Maybe if he got in quick with one of the "football friends", those two seemed incredibly eager to know anybody. Nah. That's a bit dickish. Those two actually seem to get on, I'll just grab a tent, get to work and let some straggler come to me. That seemed-- "Hup... I'm getting glared at. What did I do now? Oh. Jim-Bob must have heard me laughing in the back on the way over here. I wasn't
THAT loud on the way over here, was I?"
He was. Other campsites had turned to see what the commotion was at their arrival. From quite some distance away as well...
“In any capacity, while you lot do that, Tad here will get the fire going and rassle us up some grub, If ya don’t eat meat, now’s your time to speak up and Tad will get you the proper vittles, otherwise, I think we have something y’all are going to enjoy.” He Lifted his hat and smoothed his hair back before replacing the Stetson atop his head, because of course he did.
The "rassle" got another snort, and he couldn't hold back a chuckle anymore when the "vittles" sprang forth. He felt the eyes hold on him for a fraction of a beat, as they swept across all in attendance. Banjo took a deep breath and made a brief note of what was required, just to distract himself and recover his form.
"So, just... tent. Food's taken care of. Set a tent up and you're golden. Simple. Piece a piss."
“This year’s homecoming trial is centred around the massive hedge maze you see growing over yonder. Startin’ tomorrow, we’ll be sending you into the hedge and as a team, you’ll need to work together to navigate it, while also overcoming anything you encounter inside. While I can’t get into specifics with y’all, I can forewarn you that these obstacles can be anything as simple as a riddle to a trap riddle corridor to even a physical confrontation.” "Well, shit..."
Banjo actually had a legitimate question for the matter at hand. But he could tell he'd made the man not particularly receptive to giving him an answer or... well, anything at this point. He doubted Jim-Bob would piss on him if he fell in the campfire at this point, that'd go double for Trace, and for some reason that blonde Sparky McGee kid who seemed to have his own issues with him for some reason.
Ehh... plenty of time. It's not until tomorrow. Maybe he could ferret it out of someone else, or somewhere else.
He was struggling to understand how the whole thing worked. It seemed to be at cross-purposes. They were... supposedly somehow competing with other teams... but the ultimate purpose seemed to be to divide the team into set 'houses' based on how they handled themselves. But in some way that wasn't directly related to overall aptitude. But it was a tough thing to ask even if he hadn't already pissed anyone off. This place seemed 'hyper' with the school spirit and just pointing out that it seemed cross-purposes could probably come across as if he was slagging it off. And asked from him? Only moreso. Like, was this even a thing that a set team 'won' or was it one of those 'how the game's played' things?
Then came the real horror story...
“For tonight though, y’all should try and bond as a team. Throw the old pigskin around, sing kumbaya, play truth or dare, I don’t really care so long as you actually learn about one another. Another good idea, go over your Hyper Abilities, learn your deck before you play it. Now’s the time to reveal any hidden talents.”Team bonding and socialisation activities. Normally he wouldn't give a shit, but since his little chat with The Butler it had underlined the fact that he was going to be stuck with these people. For some time. And he hadn't exactly put up a good batting display so far. A dicey fifteen or twenty runs whilst being dropped a couple times at best. He had this horrible foreign sensation others called 'anxiety', which he was completely unfamiliar with because he usually just neglected to give a pinch of shit. He began to resent the Butler for telling him, before deciding to deal with his problems the healthy way he usually did.
By forgetting them entirely and distracting himself with something else.
He strode towards the tents with a single minded determination, before being intercepted.
"Hey, name's Calliope. I don't suppose you would be up to sharing a tent tonight?""Yup. Sure. All good. Just grabbing one now, if you want to find us a spot to ere-- put the thing up." He grabbed a tent and followed the slender blonde girl... to wherever on earth she planned on going, honestly.
"..."
"Hey..?"
"..."
"Hey, little Banjo--?"
"Look, just... Don't-- talk to me for a little while, mate... Just let me make sure this is all reality..."
Once Calliope had come to a stop, he swung the tent down off his back and proferred a suggestion.
"So how'd you come to this Looney Tunes Funland? Tell me 'bout yourself and I'll set this thing up. Had to do it enough back home. And it's always easier going with a distraction, where I'm not thinking too hard about the work at hand. Oh... ah... 'Banjo' if it wasn't already known." He popped his head up over the tent bag and turned to give her a grin, when it finally dawned on him to give his name in case she hadn't heard it.
"Also, truth be told, if we go through some of that here and now, we won't have to figure it all out in the 'team bonding' session they seem to have planned. Not... *huff* exactly looking forward to that." As he hauled the groundsheet and poles out of the bag.
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